The present invention relates to a method and apparatus of displaying bit stream data, a method and apparatus for generating bit stream data, and a storage medium.
In an apparatus which displays bit stream data (e.g., a moving-picture bit stream or audio bit stream; the moving-picture bit stream may be accompanied with speeches), it is required to execute a related program in synchronism with the display operation.
In a case of dealing with multimedia data which consists of a mixture of a moving-picture bit stream and a program, for example, displaying moving pictures may be synchronized with execution of a program in the following manner.
(a) A moving-picture bit stream is adequately read out and displayed on the display screen accompanied with execution of a program.
(b) The program detects the end of image display and starts the next operation.
The following problems however arise when multimedia data consisting of a mixture of a moving-picture bit stream and a program is broadcast and reproduced in real time, or when multimedia data consisting of a mixture of a moving-picture bit stream and a program is read out from a storage medium like DVD and reproduced in a time sequential order.
(a) At the time of reproducing moving pictures accompanied with the program execution, reception or reading of moving-picture bit stream data has not been completed yet.
(b) When image display is finished, reception or reading of a program to be executed has not been completed yet.
Further, since it is not known when a program code will be invoked, every program code must always stand by for execution. This leads to such a disadvantage that a reception terminal requires a vast amount of resources.